The Art of Waiting
by bat-hawk
Summary: In an immediately post-war society, two veterans drift together and apart, still utilizing the only skills that used to matter: the predator and the escapist. Everything's a game when you're used to spitting in the face of death; can anything pull them together for keeps, or will they keep on drifting until they meet the one bullet they can't dodge?


Written for this year's Inception Reverse Bang, and inspired by lovely artwork by **ko_no_yo** on livejournal and AO3, which you can kind of see as the cover art.

Beta read by **omletlove**, all remaining mistakes are mine alone.

I think I got rid of all the html, but do let me know if you see an errant tag.

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><p>Eames threw a flash-bang and dived for an alley mouth, his entire nervous system still singing with electricity. He crouched up against the wall, shivering uncontrollably, every molecule tense as he listened for any warning of the hunter's approach. The silence stretched for several long seconds while Eames' heart crawled into his throat, panic starting to edge his vision. Eames stood up as soon as he thought he could stay standing, creeping silently down the alley, gun poised.<p>

Eames had made it halfway down the alley, eyes shifting restlessly from side to side, when the hunter dropped down next to him from the roof of the building Eames was edging along, immediately pressing a pulse needle against the nape of Eames' neck. Eames couldn't do more than let out a weak groan of pain as the charge shivered through his body, rendering him motionless.

"There's a boy," the hunter murmured, his voice deep and somehow soothing, his hands strong where he gripped Eames. "You put up one hell of a fight," he continued as he maneuvered Eames to kneel and fastened Eames into a pair of pulse-cuffs one-handed. "It's not many that can keep up with me these days. I'd be very interested to hear where you get all your gear."

Eames couldn't help the way he perked up at that just a little, and the hunter must have noticed the minute change in posture Eames was able to affect, since he chuckled, and said, "We'll see if we can arrange a deal once I get you safely on my ship. I didn't much like the look of the creature that hired me." The hunter made sure Eames was secured before crouching back on his heels. "Now," he said, sounding very pleased with himself, "let's see the face of the finest thief in the sector." Then there were nimble fingers at his jawline and behind his ears as the hunter found the seams in Eames' helmet, easing it off far more gently than Eames would have ever anticipated. The hunter froze for a long moment before reaching out a hesitant hand to stroke Eames' cheekbone. "Eames?" he breathed, barely audible in the space between them.

Eames' gut froze at the use of his birth name, which shouldn't exist out here. Then the hunter was tearing off his own helmet, and it was Eames' turn to gasp in shock as Arthur flung his arms around him, reaching down to undo the cuffs while giving Eames the most aggressive cuddle he'd had in a while.

"Arthur, Jesus Christ," Eames managed weakly once Arthur had flung the cuffs away, wrapping shaky arms around Arthur's shoulders, "I was convinced you were dead!"

"It's the natural thing to assume, isn't it?" Arthur laughed, pulling back to run a reverent hand over Eames' face. "I can't believe it. The last I heard of you you'd gone into some high stakes spying gambit they were running, I thought for sure you couldn't have made it out of something so precarious."

"I'll do you one worse," Eames grinned, tipping his forehead into Arthur's. "I got access to the entire personnel logs with that promotion, and I saw you vanish from the books after what looked like a suicide run at the Stella Link blockade with a specialty unit that had so many adjectives it made my head spin."

"Yes, well, it became convenient for the generals to have an invisible unit filled with dead men after a while." There was a wry twist to Arthur's mouth as he spoke. "But what are you doing all the way out here, certainly you should have kept on rocketing up the ranks, gotten a nice pension, be living somewhere cush in the Nucleosector?"

"Darling, you know the Nusec never held any charm for me. But, no, there came a point when I became too valuable to be offered any more promotions. I'm sure you know how it goes, hm?" Eames raised an eyebrow at Arthur. "I had done my fair share of turning invisible by the time the Battle of Hrdeh came to a close."

"I do know that path intimately." Arthur was still smiling, dimples creasing his cheeks as he stroked Eames' hair, seemingly absently, perhaps just to make sure Eames stayed real. God knows Eames wasn't going to to loose his fists from the grooves in Arthur's body armour any sooner than he absolutely had to.

"What happened to you, then? At twenty you were raring to get back home to your family, and I can't imagine you've dragged them all the way out here."

"No," Arthur chuckled a little. "My mother remarried, so she's got several strapping step-children about to tend her every need, and my sister is off in the Nusec making a name for herself as a ruthless businesswoman."

"Traded one battlefield for another, then, has she?"

"Something like that." Arthur lapsed into silence, his hands solid and grounding on Eames' neck. Eames would have been happy to sit there longer, except for how his whole body was still aching and singed from the fight, and kneeling on alley gravel was not helping things at all.

"Arthur, how about you help me hobble to the nearest cantina, where we can trade war stories till we're blue in the face and I can drink enough to forget how charred I'm feeling."

Arthur didn't have the grace to look abashed at this, simply laughing and pulling Eames to stand with him, tucking Eames firmly against his side when Eames swayed a bit.

"You've certainly gotten stronger."

"Body modification was one of those adjectives you were complaining about, Mr. Eames. So don't take it too hard that I soundly defeated you just now; I could do that to anyone these days."

"What kind of mods?" Eames puzzled as Arthur steered him down the street, "I don't see any, unless this armour doesn't come off."

"It's nothing so gauche as that." Arthur cracked a sliver of a smile, sharp enough to cut, and that was something quite new. Eames supposed he shouldn't be surprised. They neither of them were the earnest twenty-year-olds they had been the last time they saw each other.

Arthur lead Eames to a sleek, crowded bar of the type he wouldn't ordinarily deign to enter, but he supposed it did well enough for their purposes. Arthur installed Eames at a table in a corner that was as secluded as one could get in any sort of cantina, and Eames reevaluated his earlier dismissal of the place. It was perhaps the perfect location for a couple of vets to trade stories and perhaps get a little rowdy in the telling without calling too much attention.

"Arthur, I am impressed," he said, gingerly leaning back and stretching sore muscles as Arthur set a tankard of something that smelled like paint thinner in front of him.

"Are you now?" Arthur grinned as he settled across from Eames.

"Yes. Although perhaps I shouldn't be; you always were a good hand at blending in."

Arthur hummed as he took a sip of his own drink. "Would that I had understood the value of the skill back when I knew you. I was always so eager to stand out in those days."

"Weren't we all," Eames chuckled. "Young and innocent and just raring to prove ourselves to anyone who would look."

"We are far too maudlin for how sober we still are," Arthur said, sitting up suddenly. "Here's to the military, hey?" Arthur held out his glass.

"And to victory," Eames obligingly completed the toast, clinking his glass against Arthur's and taking a swing. "Oh, god, Arthur," Eames coughed after he swallowed, licking his lips to reassure himself the sensation of his mouth melting was only in his imagination, "you really are going for old times here. I haven't touched pak fai since I was 27."

"You're such an old man, Eames, stop bringing up your age like it's something to be proud of." Arthur set his glass down with a sharp clink, folding his hands on the table and fixing Eames with a piercing look. "Now tell me everything."

"What, you want a transcript of the past 14 years?"

"Yes. Just leave out the boring bits." Arthur grinned.

"Dear god, Arthur, we'll be here for a week."

"Alright, how about this: how did you get into the espionage side of things? You were far more assault inclined when we were separated."

"Well," Eames hedged for a moment before deciding, fuck it, who cares if Arthur, of all people, knew, "we flew an incredibly disastrous mission in which my unit was one of the only survivors based entirely on the fact that I had scrambled our radio signals enough for their lock-shot mechanism to fail on us. Some higher-ups took notice, and that was pretty much that."

"You've gotten pretty good at that whole scrambling gig, hm?"

"Not good enough, apparently." Eames raised a significant eyebrow.

"I was a tracker for the last five years of the war, and one of the best we had, to be perfectly honest."

"Skipping the false modesty, then, are we?" Eames grinned.

"You know me." Arthur cocked an eyebrow, taking a long drink.

"What brought you to the Fringe? You were always a good brazos bloke way back when."

Arthur sighed, setting his glass down very precisely on his napkin. "I did try to go home at first, but the government wasn't very interested in losing its investments into the civilian population." Arthur was silent for a moment, tracing the rim of his glass. "I wasn't interested in being their attack dog any longer, so, here I am. I figure I'm the least of anyone's worries in the Fringe."

"Arthur, I'm sorry," Eames frowned, reaching across the small table to grip Arthur's hand. "How long ago was this?"

"Four years," Arthur shrugged again, staring at their hands for a moment before smiling at Eames. "Enough time to get me back into fighting shape."

"I'll say," Eames grinned, letting go of Arthur.

"What about you, then? You got my sob story, it's only fair I get to hear yours."

"There's not much sob to mine. I didn't get a due, more's the pity, and I didn't really have a home to get back to, as you know, so I took my ship with me when I left. After that, I figured why even try going straight, so out to the Fringe it was."

"Did you ever try going back home and seeing if anything was left?"

"No," Eames snorted, shaking his head and thinking of the cratered, burnt out images of his home planet everyone had seen following the attack, "I'm not that much of a masochist."

Arthur nodded silently.

"Enough of this serious nonsense," Eames demanded after a moment, "tell me a tale of intrigue from your little invisible crew."

"Hmm," Arthur paused, looking down at his fingers which were busy shredding his napkin into tiny pieces. "Okay, I've got one." He looked up again, eyes shining. "Did anyone ever tell you how the Hellion Blockade was broken?"

"Dear god, Arthur, that was you?" Eames was suitably impressed; the Hellion Blockade had stood against the best efforts of the Unionists for 65 years before it had mysteriously dissolved in the final years of the war.

"Yup. Well, me, 59 other guys, and a batshit crazy general."

"Tell me what happened! No one else in the entire galaxy knows this story, as far as I can tell. I was never able to find even the smallest clue, and my resources at that time were formidable."

"Aside from those previously mentioned and perhaps some of their spouses, no," Arthur grinned, proud. "It's a long story, so get comfortable."

"Go on," Eames prompted impatiently when Arthur hesitated.

"Okay, so, we were never given much time between missions, it was get back to the mothership, crash, then have an alarm go off at an ungodly hour a few days later for directions to our next target, so here we are, barely awake, flying out towards Hellion. We had several more days to plan once we were out there, but that wasn't doing much to help us when all we were thinking was that after all the shit we'd been through, this was finally how we were going to die."

Eames leaned forward eagerly, elbows rudely on the table as he watched Arthur's hands dance through the story.

Five hours later saw Eames and Arthur both thoroughly smashed, giggling like crazy at something clever Eames had managed. One (or both?) of them had at some point scooted their chair around the table, and they were leaning helplessly into each other.

"Tell me about your mods," Eames said suddenly, grabbing Arthur's forearm. "They can't be very extensive if I can't see them. Do you have skin under this?"

Arthur snorted derisively. "Of course I have skin." He yanked his arm gracelessly back from Eames. "There's a lot you and the rest of the galaxy don't know about mods. I don't think I have a body part left without tech in it."

"Your tongue?"

"No, Jesus, Eamesie, who puts tech in their tongue?"

Eames grinned at Arthur's use of a pet name. "It's a body part!" he defended himself.

Arthur rolled his eyes dramatically. "No tech in my tongue. Or in my dick, either," he added decisively.

"Really?" Eames wiggled his eyebrows.

Arthur laughed and shoved Eames' face away. "I'll show you." Arthur stood up suddenly, stumbling a little and shoving aside empty plates and glasses as he caught himself on the table. "Come on," he turned and tugged on Eames' arm, "they have cage fighting in the back, I saw it earlier."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Eames said slowly as Arthur yanked him to his feet. The mods really had made Arthur strong. "You're really drunk," Eames tried to keep arguing as Arthur towed him through the cantina with a firm grip on his wrist.

"I'll be fine!" Arthur shouted as they shoved their way across the dance floor. "I don't need very good reaction times for a cage fight! It's all muscle memory, anyways!"

"I don't think it really works like that!" Eames realized too late that his voice was too loud for the lobby they had stumbled into.

"You'll see, don't worry." Arthur patted Eames' arm before approaching the fight counter. "Put me in a cage," he demanded of the manager, "against someone who knows what they're doing, please."

The manager squinted at Arthur for a moment before shrugging. "Why not, kid, it's a slow night." He thrust a contract at Arthur, who put down a slightly wobbly signature. "It's your face to bust," he muttered as he took back the paper. "Cage number one," the manager pointed, "no body armour allowed, so strip off before you get in, then give us a few minutes to get the betting set up. We'll give you the signal when we're ready."

"Great, thanks!" Arthur grinned, dimples and everything, before trotting off towards cage one, which held, now that Eames was paying attention, a hulking beast of a man, flexing for a flock of female admirers crowding around the cage.

"Arthur, wait!" Eames said, a little desperate as he lurched after Arthur. "You can't do this, look at the size of that guy!"

For all Arthur's eyes were a hazy, he stayed rock solid as Eames crashed into him, clinging like a limpet. "I know, right?" Arthur sighed, reaching back to pat Eames' hip. "I doubt he knows what he's doing at all, just uses brute force to beat everyone down. Probably for the best, though, I am pretty drunk."

"Right," Eames tried again, "which is why you definitely shouldn't be fighting anyone right now."

Arthur turned, easily breaking Eames' grip and holding him at arm's length. He smiled, and it was that unfamiliar, sharp little thing from earlier. "Eames," he said, his gentle tone at complete odds with the keen, dangerous look on his face, "you don't know the things they can do to a body these days with an operating room and a budget. Not your fault," he stood on his toes and kissed Eames' cheek, "I'll show you."

"What?" Eames said after a moment, completely bewildered. Arthur just smiled wider and began to wiggle out of his body armour. He did indeed have skin underneath, smooth except where broken by long, neat surgical scars.

"You see?" Arthur grinned. "Nothing to give it away from the outside." Eames could only swallow and nod. Arthur wore shorts and a T-shirt under his armour, but the amount of skin showing was plenty for Eames to deduce that Arthur's scars faithfully followed his skeleton.

"Did they replace your bones?" Eames asked, perhaps slightly hysterically, grabbing Arthur's arm to look at the scars more closely.

"Nothing quite so dramatic," Arthur giggled, obligingly standing still for Eames' inspection. "I've still got all my same bones. I've just got a buncha extra, too." Arthur shook Eames off after another moment, shoving a handful of marks into Eames' chest. "Here, bet these on me. I could use a double-up, I cleaned out looking for you." Eames got distracted picking up all the coins he dropped, and when he looked up again Arthur was locked in the cage, bouncing in a corner opposite the beast.

"Arthur," Eames whimpered, "I really don't think this is a good idea."

Arthur smiled and crouched down, reaching out to stroke Eames' hair through the bars of the cage. "I really will be fine, I promise, though it is very sweet that you worry so much. Now hurry up and bet that, will you? This bitch won't know what hit him, promise." Arthur's eyes flashed as he looked over at his opponent.

"Fine," Eames huffed. He stared at Arthur for another moment, chewing on his lip, before stomping off to the betting table and dropping Arthur's money. "Put this on the skinny little bastard."

The man in charge snorted. "That is quite a gamble, my friend. I admire your fortitude."

Eames grumbled something indistinct under his breath, snatching his receipt and shoving his way to a front row position in the group of people who had gathered. The manager appeared after another few moments, grinning so broadly Eames briefly tried counting his teeth.

"Welcome, welcome," he crowed, "to match number seven for this evening. This exciting fight will pit our perennial favorite Gregory against the interloper Arthur! Let the battle begin!" The manager danced out of the way, and Eames could see Arthur rolling his eyes from where he stood.

Arthur moved first, striding to the center of the cage. There was still a wobble in his step, and Eames cringed as the hulk moved forward purposefully from his corner. Eames winced as the beast struck, expecting Arthur to crumple under that meaty fist, but Arthur ducked, rolled, and popped up again at the monster's side with a stumble. The crowd started to roar as the monster struck again, as Arthur once more rolled out of the way, as Arthur staggered again, as Eames bit his fist and felt wildly frantic, as the room spun gently around the edges, and fuck, what was Arthur doing, how had Eames let this happen, no one should be fighting in this condition no matter what fucking implants you have. The beast swung a third time, and there was a flurry of movement on Arthur's end that left the monster staggering, woozy, and Arthur grabbed his head, yanked it down into his knee, and that was that. The monster collapsed, Arthur overbalanced and fell the other way, but he jumped right back up again, careening into the bars of the cage, snarling, grinning, snarling, and i_dear lord/i_ the adrenaline was not helping to clear Eames' head in the slightest.

The crowd was silent around Eames, and it took several moments for the manager to collect himself enough to walk out and declare the winner. Eames stumbled his way back to the betting table in a haze. Arthur had more than doubled his money, that was for sure, Eames thought as he grabbed Arthur's winnings before turning and elbowing his way through the crowd one last time, finding Arthur bouncing around next to his discarded armour.

"Eames!" Arthur crowed on sighting him. "you've got my money, thank god." Arthur took the bag. "Oh, and I've won a tidy profit, haven't I?" Arthur beamed.

"You don't even have any bruises," was the only thing Eames could think of to say.

"Told you I'd be fine." Arthur honest-to-god winked at him, still jumping up and down to blow off adrenaline, and Eames had no idea what to do with him at that moment. "Well, what did you think? Good mods, hm?"

"I-" Eames started, because what the hell could he say, thinking back on the match, in which all of Arthur's movements had been undeniably i_sloppy/i_, but he had still laid a man twice his size out at his feet in under a minute. "Yeah," he agreed after another moment, "good mods."

Arthur laughed and settled down a little. "I should get dressed. Be a gentleman, Eames, turn your back," Arthur admonished, pushing at Eames' shoulder until he complied. Eames stood patiently with his back to Arthur, though he could not fathom why Arthur had decided to get body-shy now, of all times. "Done," Arthur announced after several moments, stepping forward to wrap an arm around Eames and steer them back through the club and the throngs of people on the dance floor to their table in the corner. There was another couple occupying it, but one hard look from Arthur sent them scurrying. Eames dropped into his chair, feeling exhausted.

"I feel like it should be my turn to show off now. They have swoop racing here, but I really need my reaction times for that. And it doesn't seem very impressive to win at cards," Eames sighed and laid his head down on the table. Arthur snickered next to him and splayed a hand over his back.

"You did pull off a daring theft a couple days ago, so don't feel too obligated."

"That I didn't even get away with! If anyone else but you had showed up today, I would be on my way to a death sentence!"

"I flatter myself, but Eames, anyone else wouldn't have found you today."

"Well," Eames sighed again, "I suppose that isn't so bad."

They sat in silence for several long moments before Arthur lurched to his feet again.

"No, stop, what now," Eames desperately grabbed at Arthur.

"Shh," Arthur batted his hand away, "I'm gonna get us some water."

"Oh." Eames slumped back onto the table. "That sounds great, ta."

"Mhm," Arthur said absently, patting Eames' shoulder as he walked off. Arthur made Eames drink two glasses of water, and then wouldn't even let him pass out on the table, insisting that they get a room upstairs and sleep in an actual bed "like real civilians." Eames didn't have the heart or the energy to remind him that they hadn't exactly managed to make that transition, considering their current lines of work. He was happy enough for the beds when they finally managed to navigate the stairs and get through the door. Arthur forced another glass of water on him, and while Eames knew in a very abstract way that he would be happy for all this water tomorrow morning, he was distinctly less pleased about it in the moment.

"Still not the best for planning ahead, are we," Arthur said muzzily, crouching in front of Eames and clumsily patting his shoulder. Eames batted his hand away irritably, spilling water over the floor.

"At least I don't swan around and try to kill myself in cage fights with monsters," Eames complained. Or that's what he thought he said. As Arthur looked a little confused, it is entirely possible that Eames was slurring by that point. He gave up on talking, paid zero attention to the next thing Arthur said, downed the rest of his water, shoved the glass into Arthur's chest, and buried his face in the pillow to sink into blissful sleep.

Eames woke the next morning registering nothing but an intense need to piss. He rolled out of bed, and was suddenly hit with his hangover as he tried to stand up. "Oh, sweet lord," he moaned, collapsing back onto his ass and cradling his head.

"Hangover?" Arthur asked from somewhere, sounding disgustingly awake and put together. Eames cracked his eyes open and glared at Arthur, who was sitting in a chair in the corner, reading his iFlex and cocking a cool eyebrow in Eames' direction.

"You drank more than I did last night," Eames squinted, accusing.

"Implants," Arthur shrugged, as if that explained everything.

"You can get implants for hangovers?" Eames squinted farther.

"Not specifically for that purpose, but there are some beneficial side effects. And stop squinting," Arthur straightened out his iFlex with a crisp snapping sound, "it makes you look like my old CO."

"Stars above," Eames muttered, rising ever so carefully to his feet and finally slogging his way into the bathroom. Arthur, the sweetheart, had ordered up breakfast while Eames was busy trying to make himself feel human again, and Eames was delighted to fall on the wonderful, greasy spread.

"When are you thinking of leaving?" Arthur asked as Eames began to slow down.

"I had planned to stay here for another couple of weeks to let the heat die down before I fence the vase."

Arthur nodded absently and went back to his reading.

"What about you?" Eames prodded. "I imagine your plan was to leave yesterday."

"Yes. But I'm at something of a loose end, now."

Eames considered this for a moment. "Nothing else on the docket?" he began, cautiously.

"No," Arthur still seemed completely unconcerned, and Eames had to wonder how much of that was put on. The Arthur of 14 years ago would have been panicking a little without an objective in front of him. "I was supposed to have gotten an obscene payout and be headed somewhere I could spend all that money, but..." Arthur trailed off, shrugging. Eames watched as he swiped across his iFlex before looking up again. "I did mean what I said about your weaponsmith, by the way. I would be very interested in knowing their whereabouts."

You could come with me," Eames suggested tentatively.

"What, tag along to your fence and follow you home?" A smile was playing about Arthur's mouth. "Seems risky."

"I already know you're not going to sell me out, Arthur." Eames raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"Not because of me," Arthur laughed, "but I highly doubt your fence is going to be happy with you for showing a bounty hunter their coordinates. Not to mention you would attract a lot of attention with me piggybacking you."

That was a much more reasonable line of argument. Still not entirely sound, however. "So we don't piggyback. You do make a good point about my fence, she would never forgive me if I gave away her location, so you go to Sokoni, wait for me while I settle my affairs, then I'll come meet you and take you to my smith."

"Sokoni, eh?" Arthur smirked. "I should have guessed, that's where all the magic comes from."

"So you agree?" Eames pressed.

"I suppose. I won enough last night to fuel up again, may as well make the most of it."

"You did mention something about running low on funds."

Arthur shrugged. "It takes a lot of bribes to find someone like you."

Eames felt himself start to tense up and forced himself to relax before asking, "Bribes to whom?" with as much nonchalance as he could muster.

Arthur was, unfortunately, unfooled. "I don't think so," he smirked, "I prefer my sources alive and willing to be bought."

"Can't blame a bloke for trying," Eames sighed, scooping his last bite of breakfast into his mouth.

"No, never for trying." Arthur went back to his iFlex for a moment before glancing back up at Eames. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to just give me the coordinates of your smith?"

"What, so eager to get rid of me?"

"It seems like a hassle for you, is all," Arthur shrugged.

Eames grinned. "He's difficult to find if you don't know what you're looking for. And I was probably going to visit him after I cash in anyways, it's really no trouble."

Arthur made a vague sound and looked down again, so Eames stood and made his way back to the bathroom to get dressed in yesterday's clothes. He felt entirely too awful to think about traipsing across the city just for fresh underwear. Arthur slipped out of the room soon after Eames returned, citing something about strengthening his underworld connections since he hadn't been to Plethos very often before. Eames thought that was a right shame, since Plethos was one of his favorite haunts, shady enough for there to be all sorts of goings on every day and crowded enough to get completely lost in the shuffle, so he left him to it and committed himself to curling up on the bed, eating pickles and watching shows on his tablet as he waited for his hangover to fade.

Arthur didn't return that night, which worried Eames a little until he considered that Arthur probably went and got himself a room in a proper hotel, rather than this room above the cantina. Or perhaps he had integrated himself into the local underbelly far faster than Eames was giving him credit for. Or he had gotten himself killed, but Eames had seen Arthur's obscenely expensive body armour, and even 14 years ago and with the body God gave him, it would have taken more than a squabble over a misunderstanding to take him down with that kind of protection. Hopefully. Eames had only just gotten him back, he wasn't ready to let him go again so soon.

Eames only left the room once to go down to get dinner at the cantina and flirt with the barmaid, who teased him about his "gentleman friend." Apparently they had made an impression, which was less than ideal, but couldn't be helped now. He went to bed early, because he was still regrettably hungover. This is why he hadn't let pak fai touch his lips in seven years, he thought glumly as he curled up around his aching gut.

Arthur was there again the next morning, face down in the pillows on the other bed. Eames blinked at him for a bleary moment before getting up. His hangover was finally gone, thank the stars; he had begun to fear it would bleed into the next day. Arthur was awake when Eames emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam.

"Morning," Eames said cautiously, running a hand self-consciously through his unkempt hair. Arthur just nodded and pushed passed him to the bathroom. Eames curled his lip as he got dressed into three-day-old clothes. He was going back to Roulette today, no doubt. Arthur reemerged as Eames finished combing his hair. "I'm going down to get breakfast." Eames set down the comb. "Join me?"

"Sure." Arthur put on his boots and followed Eames downstairs.

"How was your night?" Eames asked once they were settled and had food in front of them.

"Profitable," Arthur shrugged. "They have quite the swoop racing ring here. Regrettably, I don't have a bike, but you need bodies with guns at any gambling based event."

"So what, you stood about and looked menacing all night?" Eames couldn't help smiling at that. Arthur didn't exactly have the bodytype to intimidate belligerent drunks.

"Something like that," Arthur hedged, smiling in a very distracting way. "Did you leave the room at all yesterday?"

"Only for dinner," Eames confessed.

Arthur laughed. "I remember getting really bad hangovers."

"Mate, you sound way too fond to be talking about hangovers."

"It makes you feel human," Arthur shrugged. "Sometimes I miss those reminders."

They developed an odd sort of rhythm over those next few days, coming in and out of their little room over the cantina at odd times, sometimes together, sometimes independently. It remended Eames so strongly of their early days in the military that sometimes he expected to wake up to a Sergeant screaming and discover the last fourteen years had been nothing more than a dream. They ate together when it was convenient, telling each other enough war stories to bore even the most determined of eavesdroppers. Eames learned Arthur was all too happy to share his stories in broad strokes, but he balked at giving details. Eames could respect that. He had done some things he didn't want to share as well. It didn't stop him from being wildly curious, as well as slightly concerned that it was i_every story/i_, but he could respect it, and he didn't pry. Well, not yet.

All in all, it was a very charming cohabitation they had fallen into together. Eames had been living out of his ship for he didn't know how long now, and there was something nice in living somewhere grounded, even if it was only a transitory space.

Eames had taken Arthur with him when he went to retrieve some essentials from Roulette, and Arthur's mouth had turned down dramatically upon learning her name.

"What," Eames had said, affronted and honestly a little shocked, "don't tell me you've decided to turn your back on gambling." Arthur had laughed and shook his head.

"That's not it at all," and he had been smiling then, at least, "I just think it's funny. I named my ship Liar's Dice."

"No you didn't," a gleeful smile had taken over Eames' face despite his best efforts against it. "Darling, it's cosmic, we were i_meant/i_ for each other."

"Stars around us, Eames, I forgot just how ridiculous you are sometimes." Arthur had rolled his eyes theatrically, but he was still smiling, so Eames figured it was alright.

Arthur had taken to hanging around the swoop track every night, doing who knows what, Eames still hadn't gotten a straight answer out of him, while Eames caught up with a few old friends and busied himself forging a new docking code for one of them who was in a bit of a pinch. The barmaid at the cantina learned their names after a few days, and honestly, Eames had never been this bad at lying low. He supposed it must be time for a break at the conclusion of this job.

Eames was almost loathe to leave Plethos at the end of his self-imposed exile, but the vase was starting to weigh on his mind - the sooner he got rid of it the better now that the ruckus had died down sufficiently. He did have the prospect of meeting up with Arthur again at Sokoni to look forward to. Not to mention visiting Yusuf while freshly flush with cash. On second thought, Eames was fairly eager to leave Plethos.

Arthur came to the hangar to see Eames off. "How long will it take you to take care of things?"

Eames hummed. "To actually get rid of the thing, a few hours, but it's a few days' journey, so, perhaps give me a week and a half before you take off for Sokoni."

"Alright," Arthur twisted his hands together for a moment before clapping Eames on the shoulder. "Don't rush things, I don't mind waiting an extra day or two."

"This isn't my first heist, Arthur, I know how to handle myself."

Arthur ducked his head, and Eames smiled. "I'll be careful regardless, darling, don't worry."

"Alright," Arthur said again, "I'll see you in a couple weeks, then."

Eames held out his hand and Arthur gripped it, strong and unyielding. "Take care. Don't get killed by swoop gangs before I get a chance to see you again."

"Unlikely," Arthur cracked a smile for the first time that day. He gave Eames' hand a final squeeze before stepping clear of the gangplank. Eames saluted and trudged up into Roulette. Arthur had left the hangar by the time Eames set his bag down and got settled into the pilot's chair. He felt ridiculously like he had just been sent off to war with the awkwardness of that goodbye. He sighed as he pulled out of the hangar and waited to be cleared to launch into orbit. He had five days of flying now before reaching his fence in Kivuli, and then ten more to get to Sokoni from there. Eames punched the coordinates into the autopilot and settled in with his tablet.

Ayuul was thrilled when Eames showed up with a Gelwatt artifact, so he hardly even had to haggle with her before he was on his way to Sokoni. He was coated in a fine layer of trademark Sokoni dust almost as soon as he let down the gangplank. He grinned into the hot wind as he wrapped a scarf around his nose and mouth to protect his lungs from the stuff. Sokoni was one of his very favorite planets.

The first order of business was finding Arthur, which shouldn't be difficult, since he had given Eames his docking code back on Plethos. Eames had invested in his own landing pad on Sokoni, so he had a bit of a treck to get to the biggest port, where Arthur had most likely docked, and he was completely filthy by the time he arrived. Happily, Eames had got it in one, and he was impressed as he walked up to the bay corresponding to Arthur's code. The ship was sleek, deadly, and expensive looking. Eames couldn't help grinning as he approached; it bore more than a passing resemblance to Arthur. Eames hit the comm button at the bay's front partition.

"Yeah, what is it?" Arthur's voice crackled through after several moments.

"That's the kind of reception I get after a ten day flight over here?" Eames smirked.

"Eames," Arthur sounded surprised. "I'll be right out."

Arthur was dressed down in full civies as he dropped down with his gangplank. "You're filthy," he wrinkled his nose at Eames.

"Hazards of the planet," Eames spread his arms out and bowed a little, dust sliding from the creases in his clothing. He wondered just how saturated he would be if he had walked the whole way instead of riding the better part in a closed vehicle.

"It's regrettable that it makes such a welcoming environment for criminals." Arthur jammed his hands in his pockets as he came to stand in front of Eames. "Is it a good time to go, then?"

"As good as any." Eames turned to go, pulling his scarf back up. "Do you have a -"

Arthur pulled a scarf out of his back pocket with a flourish, cutting Eames off. "I'm not a complete idiot, you know."

Eames shrugged. "What prompted the change of clothes, then?"

"Same reason as you, I imagine. I was sticking out."

Eames smiled as they stepped out into the crowded street. "Have you been here long?"

"Just two days." Arthur's voice was muffled through his scarf, which had a faint paisley pattern now that Eames looked closer. A very fond feeling constricted Eames' chest. "I take it your business went well?" Arthur continued, oblivious to Eames' moment.

"Quite." Eames turned away to flag down a tuk-tuk, motioning Arthur inside ahead of him. The glass walls of the vehicle were a welcome relief from the constant wind as the city flashed past behind them.

A half an hour later and Eames had to laugh at the skeptical look on Arthur's face as they climbed the rickety, exterior wooden ladder up to Yusuf's business. "This is why I wanted to bring you here myself," Eames said as he led Arthur through the door.

"Eames, my friend!" Yusuf called cheerily from his workbench. He looked like he was about to continue, but then his eyes fell on Arthur as he slipped in behind Eames, and Yusuf's face shuttered. This was the other reason Eames had insisted on tagging along: the very lines of Arthur's body breathed the kind of danger that Yusuf stayed far, far away from. "And who is this?" Yusuf asked suspiciously after a beat of silence.

"I'm Arthur," Arthur nodded, wisely not approaching Yusuf, "an old friend of Eames'."

"Is this i_the/i_ Arthur?" Yusuf's eyes were suddenly sharp on Eames as Eames nodded uncomfortably. "I thought he was dead," Yusuf said with all his usual tact.

"Special operations and all that, you know how it is," Eames said quickly, wanting this part of the conversation to be quite over with. "We ran into each other on Plethos and he was curious about my kit, so, here we are, ready to spend obscene amounts of money on you."

"Well, in that case," Yusuf smiled, thankfully as easily distracted by a the thought of turning a profit as ever, "if the two of you will come right this way." Yusuf lead them through the familiar little doorway in a shadowed corner of his front room, opening onto a double-story space stuffed full of weaponry and gadgets of all types.

"Wow," Arthur breathed as he took in the place. Yusuf looked smug.

"I'll leave you to it. Eames should know where everything is by now. I'm on a very tight deadline for a pair of gauntlets I'm working on." Yusuf bustled out, leaving Arthur still staring, a little slackjawed.

"You look like you've just had the best orgasm of your life," Eames teased, gratified when Arthur immediately snapped back to himself and glared hotly at Eames before stalking off towards the grenades. Eames followed him because Yusuf had been working on some very interesting prototypes in that area when Eames had visited last. Every item was meticulously labeled with a description of what it was and what it did, Eames was fairly certain only because Yusuf himself would forget most of his vast inventory if he left things more lax.

Arthur committed himself to the arduous task of reading through every label while Eames skimmed the shelves to see if any of the things he had most been interested had made it to production. He was delighted to find that the short-range electrical grenade had been worked out. It claimed to send out debilitating electric waves within only a five foot radius. Eames grabbed three-quarters of what Yusuf had on display, then wandered off to look for a heavier rubber inlay for his armour. As Arthur had so helpfully showed him at their reunion, his current variety was getting to be out of date.

All told, Eames spent about half of his newly made cash in that one stop, but it was all on very useful things, like a supercompressed-oxygen tank that fit behind his ear and could provide five continuous hours of air, or a more stable set of rocket propellers for his boots, or a thin strip of material you could slick over your teeth and then be able to feel radio waves through them. Okay, that last one didn't have a clear use, but it was really cool nonetheless.

Eames convinced Arthur to get something to eat with him, waiting Arthur out for whatever news he obviously had to deliver if the way he anxiously fiddled with his chopsticks was any indication. "Someone has sent out a very well-paid call for bounty hunters," Arthur finally spat out, "so I'll be taking off tomorrow to get in on that."

"Oh." Eames couldn't deny he was a little disappointed. He had rather fancied the idea of keeping Arthur close now that they had found each other again, but of course that was ridiculous with the lines of work they were both in. "Well, it wouldn't do for you to be poor for too long."

"No," Arthur smiled faintly, "I must have my creature comforts, after all."

They said their goodbyes at the end of the meal, as Arthur was planning to leave before dawn, and not even Arthur was enough incentive for Eames to follow suite. "We should keep in touch this time, yeah?" Eames demanded. "Here, I'll give you my email, where's your iFlex?"

Arthur pulled the device out of his pocket and unfolded it before handing it over. "Do you have one?" Arthur asked.

"No, but I have got this," Eames pulled his solid tablet out of his bag and handed it to Arthur. He stroked his fingers reverently over the string of text Arthur had entered when they switched back. "We part on much more promising terms this time around," Eames said. "I expect to see you again before long."

Arthur just smiled, and nodded, and pulled Eames into a brief, crushing hug before they went their separate ways outside the restaurant. Eames watched the tuk-tuk Arthur had climbed into disappear around a corner and spent a brief moment wondering if he would ever see Arthur again before turning to make his way back to the landing pad that functioned like his only home.

Eames took that break he had suggested to himself, living out of Roulette on his landing pad, busying himself with spending the rest of his money in all the delightfully illegal ways Sokoni had to offer under the cloak of her persistent dust storms. About a week after his arrival, he emailed Arthur something innocuous about all the street dice to be had in Sokoni, to which Arthur had replied with a paragraph about the high quality of street art in Jagt, and they had kept up a sporadic conversation ever since.

Inevitably, Eames got bored after a month or so, so he flew off to Kivuli, since Sokoni's upper class was so small as to be nonexistent, to try and dig up a job. He was feeling like a jewel heist right about then.

Eames was delighted to find a string of emails from Arthur waiting for him when he plugged in his data lines on Kivuli. The first was about a circus Arthur had been to on Soénna, followed up two days later by a terse, _Are you alright?_ and topped off by a message sent yesterday that had Arthur threatening to track Eames down himself if he didn't reply, and a very endearing paragraph about how Arthur hoped Eames was just being a bastard who didn't tell people before taking off on long flights during which he would be unreachable. Eames grinned for a full minute at the set of messages before firing off a cheeky, _Darling, I didn't know you cared._

_Great,_ came Arthur's reply minutes later, _glad to know you're not dead, just an asshole._

Eames sighed and supposed that he should issue a real apology before going galavanting into the night. _I am sorry to have worried you, Arthur. All I did was change planets, and I didn't expect you'd think much of it if it took a few days to hear back from me._

_When you usually get back to me in a couple hours, then yes, I worry. Just don't do it again._

_I have learned my lesson, never fear._

_Very funny. Did you finally run out of money?_

_That hurts, Arthur. I was doing quite well for myself in the casinos, I'll have you know. Got bored of it, is all. Need to stretch my legs and keep my hand in, I'm sure you know how it goes._

_Good luck. Don't do anything stupid._

Eames smirked and signed off.

Kivuli didn't disappoint, its citizens still very much the type to flaunt their riches, and soon Eames had pegged a very striking sapphire choker necklace as his next target. He took great delight in stalking the family for a few weeks to sus out the perfect time to attack, then spent a few days charming and bribing his way into a set of the security plans. He would have liked to have gotten the security cameras on loop, but it would have taken an enormous hassle, so he settled for fixing a scrambler from Yusuf to his belt and then hanging about the house close enough to affect the camera feeds to get whoever was watching used to a bit of interference now and again. He hit a spot of luck when the family's twitchy, greasy butler accepted a bribe to leave a window unlocked on a certain day.

Eames slipped easily through that window, no alarm sounding since no lock had been forced, and landed light-footed on the carpet. The family was out for the morning, but he still had to be quiet in case the servants came around. He closed the window after him and made his silent way to the lady of the house's dressing room. Her jewelry case had a lock on it, of course, but Eames settled his pick over it and had it cracked in two minutes.

He smiled at the necklace, inspecting it carefully for tripwires before gently easing it out of its place of honor and into his hip bag. He heard voices in the hall as he closed everything up, so he slid behind a rack of floor length gowns and waited for them to pass before getting out of the house with all haste. He triple checked to make sure the scrambler was off so as not to leave a trail, and then hung about the markets for the rest of the day feeling smug.

In the end, he decided he liked the necklace too much to sell, so he threw his lot in with a crew of bank-robbers to make the trip out worth it.

Eames stayed on Kivuli for a few more months after that, since there was quite a ruckus kicked up by the bank heist. He had landed a couple of months before the job had actually taken place, so he was fairly safe from suspicion. One of the crew members got caught trying to run for it a few weeks in, which settled things down somewhat and didn't worry Eames. He hadn't told that crew anything about himself that was true. The ports were still vigilantly watched, even so, and Eames preferred not to make trouble for himself by making Roulette's lack of tracking signals apparent.

He made himself at home in the expansive Kivuli underworld, cheating extravagantly at cards and convincing a local gang to let him enter a swoop ring under their umbrella, until he felt it would be safe enough to fly back to Sokoni. He had been making something of a pattern of going back to Sokoni lately, but he liked it there, and he didn't figure he needed any better reason to go anywhere.

There was a lot to love about the petty criminal persona Eames tended to wear in Sokoni, so it took several more months before he started sniffing out another big heist. Yusuf pointed him towards it, of course, because Yusuf was the source of most of Eames' worst life choices.

To be fair, it had seemed like a perfectly good job at the beginning, with a young man named Adnik who Yusuf recommended highly and who Eames had heard of favorably by reputation. The only real snag was the fact that, unbeknownst to either of them, Adnik was a very poor gambler who had accrued for himself a very large number of debts, which the highest bounty on Eames' head would just about cover.

Back before Eames knew any of this, he puttered around his ship getting everything put away and secured well enough to withstand a jump into superlightspeed. He shot Arthur the obligatory line to let him know he was traveling and to expect to hear from him in three days, then disconnected the data lines and made sure his landing pad was spick and span before taking off to the coordinates he had coordinated with Adnik through Yusuf.

When Eames touched down five days later, he pulled off his helmet as he walked across the clearing they had chosen, since Adnik already had his off. As it turned out, that was an enormous mistake, since it allowed Adnik to jam a needle full of sedative into his jugular when he went to shake his hand. Eames collapsed instantly.

Eames woke on what he presumed was Adnik's ship, unless he had slept right through the transfer. He had a brief moment to be very grateful he was worth more alive than dead before he thought about why that probably was and got very glum. Adnik had stripped him down to his underthings and then cuffed him to the wall inside his cell, so there was absolutely fuck-all Eames could do about the fact that he was being carted off to his torture and eventual death.

Adnik appeared several hours later with a bowl of water and a plate of food. "It's nothing personal, I hope you realize," he said as he set his things down out of Eames' reach. He would probably have to drag them toward himself with his toes. "I just need the money, is all, and yours is the highest bounty around for several sectors."

"I would happily pay you large sums of money if you would let me go," Eames tried.

Adnik smiled and stepped away. "Even if you could pay me what I can sell you for, I know better than to let you become an enemy."

"I have someone waiting on a message from me," was literally the only other thing Eames could think of to say. Adnik snorted.

"No offense, but I really don't think that's going to affect me at all. The only thing I have to do now is arrive at my coordinates and hand you off. It doesn't really leave much time for theatrics."

"You're going to regret this." Eames put every ounce of sincerity he had into that statement.

Adnik just smiled. "I'm certain I'd regret halfway selling you out and then letting you go free to come back and kill me later much, much more." He swept out of the room, pausing at the door to say, "Eat, it's a long flight ahead of us," before disappearing.

Eames despaired. He spent the next half hour fruitlessly trying to yank the cuffs out of their anchor point in the wall. Failing that, he contemplated breaking his hands to get them out of the cuffs, but how would he be able to fight off Adnik with broken hands and no weapons? He was well and truly fucked.

Several days passed with no change. Adnik sporadically brought food and water, and Eames begged increasingly pathetically for his freedom to no avail. Until the middle of another long, interminable afternoon, when the whole ship suddenly rocked violently. Eames' heart leapt into his throat. Perhaps Adnik was meeting his client in the middle of space, simply joining their ships, exchanging goods, and going on their separate ways? It would be a very neat way of doing things.

Dread pooled in Eames' stomach as he waited, holding his breath to try to hear anything from beyond the heavy door locking him in the room. There was nothing for several excruciatingly long moments, and then the door crashed open. Eames felt himself go limp and shaky from relief as he recognized the slender form in the doorway. "Arthur," he breathed, hardly daring to speak for fear of breaking some spell.

"Eames," Arthur confirmed, ripping off his helmet as he approached.

"Adnik?" was the first thing to pop into Eames' head.

"Taken care of," Arthur said calmly as he unlocked Eames' cuffs.

"Thank the stars," Eames breathed, rubbing at his chafed wrists. "How did you find me?" he asked after another moment.

"You never wrote back," Arthur said absently, running his hands over Eames in what seemed to be a very amatur assessment of Eames' health.

"I'm fine, Arthur," Eames stopped Arthur's hands, "all he did was hit me with a sedative. A very embarrassing affair, really."

"If you say so." Arthur squeezed Eames' shoulders and stood, offering a hand to Eames. "Let's get you out of here."

They found all of Eames' things in a locker on their way out, thank god, and Eames was all too happy to scramble up into Liar's Dice through the ships' respective boarding hatches. Arthur separated from Adnik's ship, leaving it to keep on hurtling toward its destination while they turned in the opposite direction.

"Would I be correct assuming you want to go back for Roulette before anything else?" Arthur asked, pausing over the control panel.

"Yes, if she hasn't been stolen by now." Eames tried to remember if he had so much as closed her gangplank before getting himself kidnapped.

"She's still there," Arthur said with absolute certainty.

"And you know this because…?"

"Well, she hasn't flown away under her own power, and there haven't been any large transport ships landing around her, so the only logical assumption is that she's where you left her."

"Alright, well, excellent." He crumpled down in the co-pilot's chair, watching as Arthur got them properly turned around towards Roulette's coordinates. Arthur had quite the tracking system set up covering the entire wall beside him, which reminded Eames that he hadn't been inside Liar's Dice before, so he should take a good look around. There wasn't terribly much of interest besides the tracking panel, though, so Eames stared at it, watching the dots that indicated other ships move around them, until Arthur stood up.

"Come on, Eames," he offered his hand again, "let's get you settled."

Eames allowed himself to be pulled to his feet and installed in a bed while Arthur fussed over him in his own reserved way. Arthur treated Eames with caution during the flight back, needlessly in Eames' opinion, but Arthur seemed convinced that Eames would be suddenly struck by the stress of his ordeal. While it was true that Eames wasn't the biggest fan of closed doors for the next couple of days, it wasn't like anything terrible had happened to him. Arthur had intercepted him before the truly traumatic events could begin. Arthur remained unconvinced, which led to Eames musing that perhaps kidnapping would be one of the most traumatic things Arthur could experience: a contingency that he failed to plan for, followed up by a situation from which he was powerless to extract himself. Arthur did not seem impressed when Eames decided to expound on these thoughts when struck by a fit of boredom.

It took five days to reach Roulette, and Eames didn't realize until he set foot inside her once again that he hadn't felt truly settled until that moment. Perhaps Arthur had had a point after all. It was regrettably stereotypical, but now that Eames had his ship back, he felt like he was finally in control again. Arthur just looked smugly on while Eames came to these realizations.

"Are you alright to go from here, then?" Arthur asked after a few moments of Eames wandering around and reacquainting himself with his ship.

"Um, yeah, I'll be fine. You have somewhere to be?"

"I was kind of in the middle of a job when I went off to look for you." Arthur looked apologetic.

"Oh. Well, you should go ahead and go finish that, I suppose."

"You wanna make sure he didn't siphon your fuel or anything before I leave?"

"That's probably sensible." They climbed into the cockpit together and Eames checked the fuel levels, which were still fairly high. "I suppose this is goodbye again," Eames sighed.

"For a little while, at least. I'll keep in touch."

"See that you do," Eames smiled, perhaps a little sad. Arthur made an abortive gesture before just getting over it and hugging him.

"Where are you flying to?" Arthur asked as he pulled back.

"Back to Sokoni, I think. It's my right to give Yusuf hell for setting me up for a sellout."

"What's that from here, two days? Three?"

"Three for the likes of me."

"I've got seven days in front of me, but I'll hook up to data when I refuel, so let me know when you get back."

"Will do."

"I'll be looking forward to it," Arthur squeezed Eames' shoulder and slipped away.

Eames sighed and gave everything one last check before taking off, since Arthur seemed to be waiting for him to go first.

Eames stayed in Sokoni just long enough to yell half-heartedly at Yusuf (really, there was no way he could have known a previously trustworthy acquaintance had suddenly turned coat), and to sniff out a job before he was off, stealing an extravagant diamond-and-ruby cuff from a ganglord. He kept on going after that, committing a whole string of crime across the galaxy, continuing at first with more heists: a Doethine manuscript, a pure black opal, a red beryl circlet, a piece of wartime Jagt artwork with Arthur in mind (that he took back to Sokoni to store under his landing pad. If he could ever get Arthur to stick around, maybe he would give it to him). After he got tired of that, he turned to forging anything someone would pay him ridiculous amounts of money for, and when he was tired of documents and the fiddly little pieces of metal embedded in them for verification, he forged a painting for the first time in a few of years and was moderately pleased with the results.

Ayuul, his fence, was even more pleased when he brought it in, and she hooked him up with someone who wanted to steal an ancient work from a museum in the Brazos. That was the type of crime Eames liked best, so he hunkered down with Ayuul's friend, who went by Licin, and really dug into planning.

They flew into the Brazos several weeks ahead of the intended date of the crime, hopping planets where the museum's security company had outposts, bribing and stealing their way into a complete map of the museum's security layout. He was getting along famously with Licin, and if this heist went down well, he would definitely be contacting her again.

Arthur messaged 53 hours before the strike. _Baios runs an especially violent company. I'm in the area, ping me if you need some backup._ Eames had continued to update Arthur on his travel plans, so he wasn't incredibly surprised that Arthur had worked out where he was and what he was doing. Impressed, but not surprised. _Did you follow me out here? I can take care of myself, you know._

_Only indirectly. There _was _a job in this direction, I just wouldn't have taken it up had you not been engaging in dangerous activities over here._

_I don't need a babysitter, Arthur._

It took Arthur longer to reply this time. Licin had been watching out of the corner of her eye for some time, and took the lull to ask, "Who are you talking to?"

"Old friend," Eames sighed. "He's a worrywort."

"You told him what we were doing?" Licin looked alarmed, and Eames laughed.

"No, I'm not that much of an idiot, sweet girl." Licin frowned thunderously at the endearment. "He's figured it out on his own. Too smart for his own good, that one."

"Is he trying to get you to pull out?"

"No, nothing like that, never fear. He just wanted to offer backup incase things go pear shaped."

"Ah. Military boy?"

"Who isn't, in this day and age?" Eames replied distractedly as Arthur's reply finally popped up.

_I know. But it's dangerous work, and I'd rather offend you now than regret not doing so later._

_You're worse than my grandmother_, Eames sent off, feeling a little fond. It had been a while since he had had someone to worry about him. Doubtless he would have time to be properly irritated down the line if this behavior continued.

The job went off flawlessly and glamorously, and Eames got to be lowered down from the ceiling to liberate the painting from its room filled with laser sensors, and everything went generally fantastically until he and Licin were halfway out of the museum and the alarms suddenly started blaring.

"What the ever bleeding fuck?" Licin hissed furiously as security doors dropped on either side of them.

"Window, quick," Eames muttered, already moving. He pulled a compacted glass cutter out of his pack and set it to work slicing a circular hole in the thick, bullet-proof glass. Meanwhile, he drilled an anchor point into the smooth, marble floor and affixed a rope to it and the harness he was still wearing from earlier.

"Eames, we are hundreds of feet in the air right now," Licin was looking a little panicked. "That rope is too short to do us any good!"

"It'll stretch," Eames said with a tad more confidence than he felt. He hadn't had cause to use it yet, but Yusuf claimed that it stretched to 1000 feet, and Eames still didn't have a reason to mistrust anything Yusuf said about his equipment. "And in the process, it should slow us down enough that we don't die on impact with the ground."

"If you are lying to me, I am going to make your afterlife miserable."

"Go right ahead." Eames waited for the cutter to work its way through the last two inches of glass, then pulled the circle inside and held out his arms for Licin. "Hang on tight," he breathed as they squeezed out through the hole. They dropped, and Eames held his breath for the couple of seconds it took to hit the end of the rope, which immediately began to rapidly spool out farther, getting thinner and thinner as they went. They hit the ground hard, but nobody broke any ankles. Eames would have to thank Yusuf fervently later, he thought as he cut the rope off of himself and legged it after Licin.

They had about a minute to think they had gotten away until someone started shooting at them. "Stars in heaven help me," Licin yelped as a bullet chipped the pavement mere inches from her foot. They darted around the first corner they could find together. "Now might be a great time to take your friend up on that backup."

"I agree." Eames swung off his pack, digging through it as they ran and intermittently dodged bullets that were thankfully coming from too far away to be very accurate.

"Why are they shooting in a civilian zone?" Licin yelped as a bullet impacted her thigh, her armour thankfully holding up for the moment.

"Hold this," was Eames' only reply, thrusting his bag into her chest as he tried to concentrate on typing while running.

_help gunfire east of museum_, was as good as he figured Arthur needed.

_Coming_, Arthur replied instantly, thank god.

"He's on the way," Eames panted as he took back his pack and clumsily swung it onto his back. The gunfire had died down, thought likely only temporarily.

"How long will it take him to get here?"

"I have no idea. I don't know where he's been staying, and I don't know what he's coming in."

"Great," Licin hissed. They rounded the next corner only to come upon a blockade. Eames took three bullets as they scrambled away, and a breach alert popped up on his heads-up display.

"Fuck, they've got some guns."

"You're telling me."

A squadron of soldiers rounded a corner into the street ahead of them, peppering the both of them with bullets as they bolted for the nearest ally. Eames hissed as two hit compromised parts of his armour, stinging like fuck where the armour didn't fully absorb them. The same thing had happened to Licin if her muttered curses were anything to go by.

"We're getting farther away from Roulette," Eames realized suddenly, "she's north and west from here."

"Well, fuck, because we've been running south and east away from the guns this whole time! Do you think they know where she is?"

"They can't." Eames felt dread growing in his stomach, but they _couldn't_ know where she was. Unless someone told them, but precious few people knew where they were, and even then, they wouldn't know how to find Roulette. It had to be coincidence. A shadow fell over them, then, and Eames fucking dove for any cover he could find, which turned out to be a narrow alcove in front of someone's door. He was about to shoot out the lock when he heard Arthur shout, "Eames!" and his knees went weak with relief.

He turned to see Arthur crouching on Liar's Dice's lowered gangplank as she hovered as close to the rooftops as possible. Licin was already halfway up a rope Arthur was holding. "Hurry up!" Arthur bellowed, and Eames ran, shimmying up the rope as fast as he could. Arthur was already in the cockpit again by the time Eames clambered onto the gangplank, having handed over the rope to Licin. Eames ran after him, and Licin followed Eames as the world spun away from beneath them. "Strap in," Arthur growled as they reached the cockpit.

"Yessir," Licin muttered, grabbing a fold-out seat while Eames took the co-pilot's chair.

"Ready? Should be prepared for anti-aircraft."

"Yeah, do what you have to," Eames confirmed after a quick glance at Licin. Thankfully, the security company apparently didn't have clearance to fire the big guns over civilians, and they were in orbit in a few more moments. There was no way word had travelled fast enough to the port authorities to ground Liar's Dice, and they were cleared to break orbit immediately. Everyone took a moment to breathe before speaking again.

"That was so much closer than I'm comfortable with," Licin sighed first.

"Agreed," Eames took off his helmet to rubb his eyes. "You still have the painting?"

"Unless it has a bullet hole." Licin pulled her pack off to check.

"What went wrong?" Arthur asked.

"I have no bleeding clue," Eames groaned. "One moment we're fine and dandy and about to get out scott free, the next every alarm in the building is going off and we're being shot at."

"Newly installed trip lasers, perhaps?"

Eames shook his head. "I've got software installed to recognize those for me," Eames tapped his helmet. "There were none in that hallway."

"Well, doubtless they'll print this in the papers, you can read all about it then."

Eames just slumped farther in his chair.

"The good news is that the painting is completely undamaged," Licin reported from the floor.

"That is a huge relief."

"Thanks for that whole rescue sequence, by the way," Licin addressed Arthur, "I'm Licin."

"Arthur," Arthur looked over his shoulder. "Glad I could be of use."

"I'm not," Eames grumbled. "It's things like this that fuel your paranoia!" Eames defended when both of the others frowned at him.

"It's not paranoia if the things I'm afraid of actually happen," Arthur pointed out.

"See? This is what I mean."

"Well, I, for one, am very glad you have a paranoid friend, Eames."

"We could have gotten out back there by ourselves. It would have just taken a while and maybe several flesh wounds."

"Speaking of flesh wounds, you wouldn't happen to have gauze and some salve around here, would you, Arthur?" Licin smoothly ignored Eames.

"Yeah, I'll show you. Fly for a minute, Eames?" Arthur walked out before getting a reply. It's not like Eames had much to do anyways, they were already locked onto a set of coordinates. Arthur came back a few moments later with a medkit in hand. "You get any burns?"

"Yeah, just a couple minor things."

"Let me see?"

Eames set about pulling off the armour on his right leg, which had taken most of the damage for whatever reason. Pieces on the lower leg cracked and fell apart as Eames removed them.

"You came pretty close to losing this leg," Arthur frowned, gently picking his heel up to get a closer look.

"Well, almost isn't did." Eames winced as Arthur started smearing salve over the burns. They were silent as Arthur finished patching Eames up.

"Sorry we couldn't get Roulette," Arthur crouched back on his heels.

"We could go back in with my ship to get her," Licin said as she re-entered the room.

"Yeah," Eames agreed. "They don't have anything against your ship. Arthur here will have to steer clear of this area for a while."

"Worth it," Arthur shrugged.

Eames laughed. "Where are we headed now?"

"Bolshivek; just the nearest populated planet. Where's your ship?" He addressed Licin.

"On Hivilsted."

"Alright. I want to hit Bolshivek anyways just to burn some time, and then we'll head for Hivilsted."

It was only a day's journey to Bolshivek, and three from there to Hivilsted, and then Arthur was pulling his disappearing act all too quickly. "It was a pleasure to meet you," Arthur shook Licin's hand. "Keep an eye on Eames for me, would you?"

"Eames is the only reason I'm alive right now, so I will be happy to do just that."

"And you," Arthur turned to grip Eames by the shoulders, "I expect you to be extremely careful."

"Yes, of course," Eames rolled his eyes.

"I'm serious. And stop somewhere on your way home to let me know you got out safe. I'm gonna take a short trip home while I'm all the way up here."

"That's good, Arthur. How long a flight is it from here?"

"Nine days. But I will expect to have an email waiting for me on the fifth day when I make a fuel stop."

"And you will have it, you silly man." Eames grabbed Arthur and hugged him. "Enjoy your time with your family."

"I will," Arthur smiled into Eames' neck for a few moments before breaking away and climbing back into Liar's Dice.

"So," Licin raised a significant eyebrow once the two of them were safely ensconced in her little ship. "You and Arthur; why aren't you two banging like rabbits?"

"Licin," Eames complained. "You're so vulgar."

"Oh, shut up, Eames."

Eames remained silent because… well, he had no idea what to tell her.

"Okay, I'll leave you alone. I'm just saying, it's really obvious that you both really like each other."

Eames and Licin promised to meet each other at Ayuul's on Kivuli before parting. Eames snagged a local newspaper on his way to Roulette, and plastered across the front page was the headline, "INTERVIEW WITH JANITOR WHO FOUND MUSEUM HEIST IN PROGRESS," and Eames had to laugh at the sheer absurdity. He read the article, and apparently the fellow had forgotten his tablet at the museum and was back looking for it when he spotted the empty frame and courageously sounded the alarm. Eames was never going to steal another piece of art without a forgery to hang in its place.

From Kivuli where Eames flew with heavy pockets to Sokoni, because he felt like going home after nearly dying for a painting, and Sokoni was the closest thing he had left.

Arthur appeared on Eames' doorstep five weeks after he last saw him. Well, Eames didn't have a doorstep, but Arthur was sitting on Eames' landing pad when he came home one evening after a rather long day at the swoop tracks.

"Arthur!" Eames smiled. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Arthur shrugged. "Just felt like seeing you."

"Well, I'm delighted to have you. Do come inside." Eames let down Roulette's gangplank and led the way up. Arthur was very quiet while Eames puttered around and whipped up something for them to eat. "Did you enjoy your time with your family?" Eames asked as he sat down with their plates.

"Yes," Arthur broke into a big grin. "Yes, I really did."

"Glad to hear it. Was your sister home?"

"Yeah, I let her know before I flew in, so she had time to come down."

"And the step-family is treating your mother well?"

"Fantastically, actually. The father is a good man. Lost his legs in the war. Most of the children are too young to have experienced much of the war, but that's a good thing. Makes them happier, brighter to be around."

"Well, good." Eames' heart ached for Arthur, who so obviously would still much rather be in the Brazos.

"And what about you?" Arthur asked after a moment, "How have you been?"

"I've been alright. Doing a lot of swoop racing, and that's about it."

"And your leg's all healed up?"

"Oh, yes, weeks ago."

"Good, good." Arthur looked down and began to shred his napkin into tiny pieces.

"Darling, what is it, you're rather worrying me."

Arthur fidgeted for another moment before looking up and choking out, "Miles, one of the old higher-ups in the army, tracked me down while I was at home. He wants me to, I guess, rescue another former test subject from where they've got her on ice."

"And what the hell is he asking you for?" Eames said sharply. "Shouldn't he be calling in favors from his old buddies for this kind of thing?"

"I think they're the ones who made the decision to keep her, so I'm not sure that's an option."

"Explain the situation to me a little more," Eames frowned.

"As far as I know, they kept on pushing the limits in the bodymod program until the war ended, at which point they put their most advanced subject on ice to avoid losing her into the civilian ranks or having her turn on them or whatever other excuse they could think of. Miles doesn't agree with their methods, but he doesn't have any allies to back him up. So he says that I'm just about his last chance to get this girl freed."

Eames was quiet for a moment while he digested that. "Did you know this girl?" he decided to ask first.

"No," Arthur shook his head, an abrupt, sharp movement. Eames felt very old, suddenly, as he watched the brittle set of Arthur's shoulders.

"You know you don't owe them anything."

"I know that," Arthur watched Eames with sharp eyes, "but I would want someone to break me out if I had been their last subject."

Eames nodded. He couldn't really argue with that, despite his desire to keep Arthur from flinging himself into unnecessary danger. And perhaps, Eames thought as he studied the determined line of Arthur's jaw, perhaps this would be good for Arthur. Maybe he could lay down some of the guilt that clung to every glossed-over story if he could do something that was just good.

"Alright." Arthur looked surprised by Eames' easy concession. "Will you let me help?" Eames asked significantly, and Arthur snorted as he realized this was the point Eames was going to fight for.

"I was hoping you would, actually. I do need to get in and out of a very secure location without leaving a trace. We all know you're the best."

"You flatter me," Eames smirked. Arthur smiled back, an honest flash of dimples, and yes, Eames was right. This would be good for Arthur.

"I don't really know anything about the place where they're keeping her." Arthur's tone was apologetic. "It's called Sharar Gira." Eames shook his head; he had never heard of it before. "It was apparently a strategic military base at the beginning of the war, but everything around it was destroyed, so now it's just a minimally staffed police station in an out-of-the-way corner of the galaxy."

"That certainly works in our favor."

"There are sure to be extremely heavy security measures around her, even so."

"I'd rather go up against a security system than human guards any day. AI's are so delightfully predictable."

"And the isolation makes flying there and back undetected more difficult."

"Now that is an easy fix, darling," Eames grinned. "We simply go in Roulette."

Arthur frowned. "Liar's Dice has a better weapon's system."

"Arthur, if we have to use the weapons system we are already fucked."

"Alright, fine, we'll take Roulette."

"Such a concession," Eames chuckled, "she's only the most untraceable ship in the galaxy."

"And so modest," Arthur said darkly, and Eames laughed.

"As delightful as all this is, it's been a long day and I'm absolutely knackered. Let's pick this up tomorrow morning, shall we?"

"Okay. You do look tired," Arthur allowed.

Eames snorted as he stood and stretched. "You condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur, thank you." Eames walked to his room, feeling very smug that Arthur's gaze had gotten very fixed on the way Eames had arched his back.

"Alright," Eames yawned over coffee the next morning, "what was it we had to go on, again?"

"Here," Arthur handed Eames his iFlex, "I did a little digging last night while you were sleeping."

"Yes, yes, fuck me for sleeping," Eames sighed as he took the device, staring at the columns of strings of numbers and capital letters printed over its surface. "What are all these specs for?"

"There seems to be an abandoned remote station still in orbit around Sharar Gira that used to handle all the security on the surface station."

"Well, this just got a whole lot easier." Eames put down his coffee and focused on the details in front of him. "Where did you find all of this information?" Eames asked, a little amazed. Arthur had gotten everything down to the connection type between the orbital station and the surface station. Arthur just shrugged and said, "I did a little hacking," casual as anything. Eames cast a glance over at him. "If you can hack well enough to get this," Eames waved the iFlex meaningfully, "then what the hell do you need me to do?"

"Eames!" Arthur blushed. Adorably. "You know it's not the same thing. I can hack as many databases as I like, but security is in an entirely different syntax, and I just… never really got the hang of it as well." Arthur seemed embarrassed about that.

"I suppose I should know," Eames smiled, "seeing as I've got the opposite problem and all."

"Yes, yes, we are cosmically destined for each other," Arthur rolled his eyes, and Eames was a little shocked that Arthur had seemingly internalized that notion, "but let's return to the subject at hand. What do you need to get into the mainframe and turn everything off from that orbital station?"

"Several uninterrupted hours to work." Eames handed Arthur back his iFlex after one last scan.

"That's it?"

"Yup. The connections will all be there, it's just a matter of opening them up again, and locking the guys on the surface out."

"Well, great." Arthur looked surprised. "Do you need anything before we go?"

"Well, hopefully something to eat. And time to pack." Flying out was the last thing he wanted to do today.

"Okay. It's a several-day flight from here, so, how does tomorrow morning sound?"

"Sounds just fine." Eames took another sip of his coffee.

"Alright. Good." Arthur stood, looking antsy. "I'll go get us some breakfast, shall I?"

Eight days later, they landed on the empty orbital station.

"This is too easy," Arthur growled as Eames docked Roulette. He had been tense the entire flight, and he wasn't looking any better now.

"This part is this easy," Eames said, aiming for soothing, "you'll get all the difficulty you want when we go down to surface tomorrow."

Arthur breathed out harshly, but he stayed quiet as Eames finished landing and they disembarked.

"I'm going to make a round," Arthur decided, his eyes darting around anxiously.

"Alright. I'm going to head to the control room, see exactly what sorts of connections with the surface they have here."

"I'll walk with you." Arthur hefted his gun.

Eames nodded. There was no use arguing with Arthur when he was feeling paranoid. They didn't encounter anyone, of course, but Arthur discovered that the station had a lifescan capability, which he quickly busied himself with. Happily for Eames and their mission, Arthur's information had been correct, and Eames had everything he needed to disable security, even if it was under several layers of encryption and firewalls.

"Negative for other life forms on the station," Arthur reported, though he was still frowning. He didn't trust much tech that wasn't installed under his own skin.

"Good. I don't suppose you can run that thing on the surface station?"

Arthur frowned and tapped at the screen for a moment. "I'd need a while to hack into it, but I think the capability is probably there. This was a monitoring station, after all."

"It could be useful if we could get a continual scan set up tonight, observe the sentry rounds."

"I want to get eyes around this place first." Arthur stood, still clearly antsy. "Do you think they noticed us flying in?"

"I highly doubt it. I'll be in here to monitor any craft that approach, anyways."

"Okay." Arthur stood still for another moment before abruptly turning and marching into the corridor. Eames went back to the boards and the tricky business of wrestling for control of the security system from the surface station.

Eames had made good headway by the time Arthur settled back in next to Eames to get to work on the lifescanner.

"All clear?" Eames asked, keeping his gaze pointedly on the screens.

"Yup," Arthur replied absently. Eames risked a glance over at him, relieved to find that he finally looked settled.

"Good," Eames smiled. The rest of the day was spent in silence punctuated only by the pressing of buttons or the occasional muttered curse when something got tricky.

Arthur leaned back with a groan some time later, stretching until his shoulders and spine popped. "I got it," he sighed, tapping the screen one last time to bring up the scan of the surface station.

"Brilliant," Eames murmured, breaking away from his own work to look at Arthur's, rubbing his tired eyes. "There really is only a skeleton crew down there." Eames watched the blinking red dots indicating life forms for several long moments until Arthur rested a hand on his shoulder.

"How are things going on your end?"

"Rather nicely, actually." Eames sat up straight. "Though I've still got several more hours until I can quit."

"Would you like for me to get us something to eat?" Arthur stood, his hand sliding over Eames' chest, causing him to fight against a shiver that threatened to run up his spine.

"That would be lovely, thank you," Eames smiled up at Arthur, craning his neck to meet his eyes.

"I'll be right back," Arthur patted Eames' chest and disappeared while Eames slumped into his chair and closed his eyes. He figured he deserved a break by now, even if he was likely to fall asleep like this before Arthur returned.

Eames was seriously drooping by the time he had control of the security mainframe. He had convinced Arthur to go to bed after Arthur had spent a few more hours following dinner transferring the lifescan feed to his iFlex, which is something Eames would have never been able to do. In fact, he hadn't previously thought it was possible, but it looked like it was old hat for Arthur. Eames stretched out the kinks in his neck, shoulders, and back as well as he was able before stumbling blearily to the sleeping quarters and crawling into bed with Arthur, molding himself around Arthur's warm body. Arthur woke of course, but only to ask, "Success?"

"Yes," Eames sighed into Arthur's hair.

"Good." Arthur tucked himself a little more firmly against Eames, and Eames was delighted to go falling into sleep.

Eames woke with his nose pressed to Arthur collarbone. He took an indulgent inhale and snuggled a little closer.

"You 'wake?" Arthur asked muzzily, an uncharacteristically clumsy hand threading through Eames's hair.

"Hmmmmm," was all Eames managed. His eyes felt absolutely glued shut. And thank all that is holy, Arthur for once did not seem keen to leap out of bed as soon as he was conscious.

"You got everything ready?"

"Yup."

"Anything I should know?"

"The artificial gravity is attached to the security as a safety measure, can't turn security off without the gravity going." Eames mumbled into Arthur's shoulder. "Pretty common in places with large gravity variations from standard, that. Surface gravity here is about 5% of standard, so it'll be quite bouncy."

"You have much experience with low-g?"

"I did say it was a common practice. I'm just glad it's lower than standard here rather than higher. It can really hurt when it's higher."

"You wanna set the gravity in here to surface so we can get used to it before going down?"

"Not a bad idea," Eames yawned.

"Go ahead and go back to sleep if you're still tired." Arthur's fingers began massaging Eames's scalp, and he let out a sound akin to a purr. Arthur chuckled, but he kept it up. "There's no real hurry as far as I can tell."

"Marvelous," Eames sighed, utterly content for the moment.

Arthur was cooking when Eames woke again. "You spoil me," Eames smiled, stretching luxuriously.

"You're right," Arthur smirked over his shoulder.

"Probably the only time I'll ever hear you say that," Eames sighed, letting himself go limp against the mattress again.

"Very likely."

"And the moment is gone."

"Get up," Arthur scolded, "I made you breakfast."

Eames groaned and rolled out of bed. "Oh, look at this," he said appreciatively, inhaling deeply over the pan of hash and taking the opportunity to sling an arm around Arthur's waist. Surprisingly, he was not immediately shrugged off.

"All the stops," Arthur smiled up at him, eyes warm. Eames took shameless advantage of Arthur's less strident sense of personal boundaries until he was forced to let go and sit across the table from Arthur as they ate.

Arthur whisked Eames's plate away from him the instant he was finished. Eames briefly lamented the end of their morning. "Shall we go fuck with the gravity now?" Arthur asked as he rinsed the dishes. Eames sighed and followed Arthur down to the control room.

"You said 5% of standard, didn't you?" Arthur queried as he bent over the environment controls.

"Close enough."

Arthur gave him a dark look.

"Right, right, specificity, I'll put in the exact number, calm down," Eames grumbled, shouldering past Arthur. It took several seconds for the gravity system to adjust, leaving Eames feeling distinctly off balance when it did. Arthur took a few wobbly, galumphing steps before going still, his eyes unfocused.

"Arthur?" Eames asked uncertainly, trying to catch Arthur's eye.

"What?" Arthur replied absently.

"You alright?"

"Yeah." Arthur took a few more steps, more certain this time, before pausing once more. Finally he looked over his shoulder at Eames, smiling a little. "Sorry, I was adjusting my systems." He strode back over to Eames, looking perfectly normal.

Eames's jaw dropped a little. "That's impressive. I didn't realize they had made such successful stabilizers yet."

"Most people don't." Arthur's smile was wry. "Come on, then, let's see you do it."

"I'm going to look useless next to you," Eames grumbled, but he took some hesitant, clumsy steps anyways. He remembered the trick of low-g soon enough, moving efficiently, if not with Arthur's artificial grace.

"What are you talking about, you're good at this," Arthur chided. He ushered Eames out into the main lounge space of the station, which was completely empty now that the place was decommissioned. "You have much practice fighting in these conditions?"

"No, generally when you encounter guards you don't immediately put down in my line of work, the jig is up."

Arthur snorted. "I suppose that would be the case. Shall we now?"

"What, spar? I don't think so. I'm still fully human, I'd like to remind you."

"Come on, Eames, you need the practice, and I need to fine-tune my stabilizers. And it'll be fun! When's the last time you had a good match?"

"Alright, fine. But I'm going to say I told you so when you break my leg or something equally disastrous happens."

Arthur frowned. "That's a good point. I'll be right back." Arthur slipped out of the room, coming back before Eames could really work up any curiosity. "Here." Arthur thrust a helmet into Eames's chest.

"I take it the armoury is still stocked." Eames took the helmet and buckled it on. "So now I'm all protected from concussions. What next?"

"We fight?" Arthur grinned.

"I remember we did this once before, and I seem to recall my body did not thank me back then. I've only grown more fragile since, I can't imagine what it'll be like now."

"Oh, calm down, you were also shot several times with a stun gun and put in pulse cuffs. This will be a completely electricity free fight."

"Except for what's under your skin."

Arthur rolled his eyes, as if Eames was being the unreasonable on here. "I'll be gentle with you, Eames, is that what you want to hear?"

"Oh, yes, thanks, I'm all ready to be gently beaten, now."

Arthur gave a long sigh. "Just hit me, Eames."

Eames obliged him. Arthur was good enough to let that first blow land, though with the grin he wore the whole time, it couldn't have been very painful to him. Eames was completely unbalanced by the full body movement without a nice 10 meters per second pressing down on him. He managed a few stumbling, sideways steps before falling gracelessly to the ground. Arthur burst out laughing, and Eames shot him a dark look.

"I can't help it," Arthur managed between bouts of giggles, "you should have seen yourself."

"Yes, yes, laugh it up," Eames grumbled, pushing himself to sit up, but not going any farther than that. He couldn't help smiling as Arthur tried and completely failed to get ahold of himself several times before finally calming down.

"Sorry." Arthur held out a hand to help Eames up, still grinning.

"You're not sorry at all." Eames grabbed Arthur's hand anyways, pulling himself up too vigorously for the gravity of this sad place and going bouncing into the air. Arthur caught him and set him back on his feet before he could get too far.

"Come on, try again." Arthur bounded a step away. Eames sighed and just tackled him to the ground. It was easier that way, without having to think much about where all his extra acceleration would take him, though he found he was a rubbish wrestler when weight was removed from the equation. He managed to get on top of Arthur for a moment by pure, dumb luck, except that prompted Arthur to kick him off, and he went flying and crashed into one of the enormous picture windows lining the space.

"Eames!" Arthur sounded panicked as he snatched Eames out of the air before the slow gravity could put him on the ground. "Are you hurt?"

Eames groaned and wiggled for a moment to make sure his spine still worked. "I think I'm fine. I'll just have some spectacular bruising."

"I'm sorry, Eames," Arthur sighed, setting Eames back on his feet.

"Don't fret, stiffness won't set in until tomorrow if it does at all. Your damsel in distress will not be affected."

"That's not exactly what I was most concerned about," Arthur frowned.

"I'm fine, Arthur, there's no reason to get worked up."

"If you insist," Arthur sighed.

"I do." Eames stretched a little more to ease the dull throb in his spine.

"What's this," Arthur reached out to tug lightly at Eames's dogtags, which had slipped out of his shirt at some point during the scramble, "you still wear your tags?"

"Yeah," Eames admitted, a little bashful. Perhaps it was a silly habit, but he kept to it all the same. "Despite everything, I'm still proud of what I did in the war. And they help me remember those who didn't make it through."

Arthur smiled softly. "I'm glad." He rubbed his thumb over Eames's name carved into the thin metal before letting the tags float freely between them. "I wish I felt the same way."

"Arthur, don't talk like that," Eames admonished, gripping Arthur's forearms and dragging him as close as he could with his helmet between them. "From what few hints you've dropped and the secrecy you've kept, I am quite convinced we never would have won without your little troupe of dead men."

"They always did say the ends justified the means, but I'm not quite so sure these days."

"Oh dear, are we going to do this now? Should I go break out the alcohol, get us properly smashed before we have this conversation?"

"There's no need for that," Arthur waved him off. "We really should get moving. Do you think you're ready?"

"Darling, I was born ready," Eames immediately regretted saying. Arthur gave Eames exactly the unimpressed look he deserved for that.

"In that case, shall we get dressed and shuttle down?"

Eames sighed. "Yes, of course."

Before long, Eames was typing in a last string of code and holding his breath as he activated his take-over. He let out a relieved breath as the security feeds flickered to life on the network of screens covering the walls of the control room, everyone on the surface station visibly panicking as they realized the absence of the artificial gravity. Eames took off running toward the hangar, clambering into Roulette to join Arthur in the cockpit.

"It worked?" Arthur asked sharply as Eames took over the controls and began taking off.

"Yes, it went perfectly, as far as I could tell."

"And you're sure they don't have an emergency override?"

"Even if they did, Arthur, I did enough to jam it for several hours. Give me a little credit, hm?" Eames cracked a tense smile.

"If you're sure." Arthur turned away to quadruple- or quintuple-check his weapons.

Eames had been a little afraid they would be shot at as they docked after giving such a warning of their imminent arrival, but apparently they put far too much stock in radio-aim systems here, as they entered completely clean. There was no one in the hangar, but Eames hadn't expected there to be. It would be murder to send people out to be mowed down by ship guns.

Arthur had pulled up the lifescan on his iFlex again (and Eames was still so, so impressed that he knew how to do that) and was drawing out the least crowded route to their captive while Eames grabbed his gun and gave his equipment a last quick check.

"Look good?" Arthur held up the screen for Eames' inspection.

"Yeah," Eames replied after a moment. "Ready?"

Arthur nodded and took point as they descended the boarding ramp. It felt a lot like cheating to have the lifescan with them, but then, Eames was never one for playing by the rules, anyways. Arthur led Eames confidently through the eerily silent complex, the only sounds to be heard those made by groups of guards when they passed close enough. They came upon a few locked doors, an apparent last-ditch attempt at securing the place, but Eames was able to pick them fairly easily, Arthur standing vigilantly above Eames as he knelt on the floor to hack the mechanisms. There was something oddly nice about that, even beyond the guarantee that no one would be able to sneak up on him like that.

Even when they had to get into a firefight (with _advanced warning_, Eames loved Arthur so much at that moment), the two of them put the guards down with brutal efficiency and moved along. By the time they reached the room Arthur's little friend was rumored to be stashed in, Eames had only taken two or three shots, all of which had been fully absorbed by his armour. Things were impossibly going even better than he could have hoped for as he knelt to unlock the final door.

"Three hostiles approaching from the north," Arthur murmured, studying the lifescan. "No one else is in the area, I'll go intercept them, you keep working on this."

"Sounds good," Eames said, distracted. He jimmied the door open after a few more moments as gun chatter began to echo down the hallway towards him. He heaved the door open and slipped inside; Arthur was more than capable of handling himself, Eames knew.

The room was filled with weaponry, guns and cartridges lining the walls and blades and explosives strewn over the tables. In the far corner stood a small, freestanding cabinet, which, upon closer inspection seemed to be the cryopod. It was locked, of course, and far more sophisticated than any door lock. Eames pulled out a little hacking machine and attached it to the chamber's interface, fiddling for a moment to set things up and then letting it alone to do it's work. Arthur entered the room while it was still going at it.

"Everything alright?" Eames asked, looking up from his work.

"Peachy. Is that her?"

"I'm assuming, but who knows for sure."

Arthur nodded and stuck his head out into the hallway.

"I thought you said there wasn't anybody nearby."

"Not according to the scanner, but it's not perfect. And it wouldn't register droids at all," Arthur said stubbornly.

Eames sighed and turned back to watch his machine work. It blinked after a few more moments as the cryopod door gave a quiet 'snick' signalling success. Eames pulled it off and held his breath as he opened the chamber. There was indeed a young woman inside, so Miles must have known what he was talking about after all. Eames watched as her brow crinkled, then her eyes opened, clouded with sleep and confusion. She focused on Eames after a few slow blinks, and she suddenly went diamond hard. Eames didn't even get the chance to take a breath to explain things before she kicked him in the sternum, sending him flying. He yelped as he smashed tailbone-first into a wall for the second time that day. His poor, poor arse was going to be sore for weeks.

Arthur made an alarmed noise and was across the room before probably-Ariadne could get more than a step out of her cryopod. "Who are you?" she hissed as Arthur got very obviously between her and Eames, who was still struggling to stand, wincing every time his lower back shifted. "Where am I?" she continued without pausing. "Has the flight been intercepted?"

"My name is Arthur," Arthur hurried to say when Ariadne stopped, "I was part of the 53rd Infantry. And you're on Sharar Gira, where the government sent you immediately upon winning the war."

Ariadne's eyes sharpened at the mention of the 53rd. "That was going to be my unit. What do you mean, is the war over? I thought I was going to reinforce the attack on Hrdeh?"

"As far as I know, command got word that we took Hrdeh while you were being shipped out, so they diverted you here to keep you in storage should they need you again."

"Why would they do that?" Ariadne seemed very sceptical.

"Because you apparently have the most advanced mods in the galaxy, and they wanted to keep an eye on their investment."

"What? I don't have any mods."

Eames stared at the girl over Arthur's shoulder. Perhaps they had rescued the wrong one.

"What's your name?" Arthur asked after a beat of silence.

"Ariadne," she said hesitantly.

"Do you remember knowing Commander Miles?"

"Yes," she replied, still obviously wary, "he recruited me for a special program."

"Right, do you remember what the project was?"

"Of course I-" Ariadne stopped suddenly, her eyes clouded with confusion. "...No," she continued after a long moment, "I have no idea what the project was."

"Memory loss isn't all that uncommon after spending years in cryo," Eames put in, having finally managed to get upright again. Arthur spared him a concerned glance before turning back to Ariadne.

"How long have I been asleep?" Araidne's voice was going a little shrill from anxiety.

"About five years," Arthur said gently.

"No," Ariadne glared daggers at Arthur, "you're lying."

"I'm afraid he's not," Eames grunted. He was trying to stretch the ache out of his back, since he couldn't very well rub it through all his armour.

Ariadne darted at Arthur, her face screwed up in something that could be anger or could be pain. She was blindingly fast, and Arthur barely got his arms up in time to defend himself. Eames couldn't do much besides stand there and watch as the two of them tangled. His mouth might have fallen a little open at the speed and ferocity involved in the fight. Arthur eventually got the upper hand, if only because he was wearing full body armor as opposed to Ariadne's cloth, pinning her on the floor. Arthur's iFlex chirped softly in the brief silence that followed, and he and Eames both went stiff.

"Check that?" Arthur asked, strained. Eames plucked the device from Arthur's pocket, his stomach dropping as he took in the scan.

"Ten hostiles approaching from the south, five more look like they're going to join from the west.

"Shit," Arthur hissed. "Ariadne, I appreciate that you are confused right now, but I think you will agree that we should all get away from the place you were imprisoned in cryo for the past five years, yes? We can get you to Miles, and you can deliver the full inquisition there, deal?"

"Fine, yes," Ariadne spat, and Arthur sprang to his feet, grabbing Eames by the elbow and ushering him out of the room while he quickly looked over the scan.

"Way we came still seems clear," Arthur said tightly.

"Right, great, _let's go_," Eames snapped, catching sight of the group of ten as they came around a corner down the hallway.

"_Fuck_," Arthur grabbed Eames' arm and started sprinting. Eames looked back to make sure Ariadne was following them before kicking himself into high gear. A few shots whizzed past Eames' head, but thank the stars, they turned into an adjoining passage just then, relatively safe for the moment. They ran like all fuck through the complex, pausing only once for Arthur to sling Ariadne over his shoulder when it became obvious that even with her mods, her atrophied muscles weren't going to be able to keep up.

A small cluster of guards was waiting for them at the hangar, but that was why Eames was friends with Yusuf. He threw an electric grenade at them, and he and Arthur leaped over the seizing bodies covered in a mess of wires and electric nodes on their way to Roulette. They barreled aboard and into the cockpit, where Eames took off with all haste. He expected anti-aircraft fire again, and this time he got some, but it was all terribly off-aim, and Eames had never been happier that the army had stopped really training people to aim without targeting systems a long time ago.

Ariadne scooted away to the sit against a wall as soon as Arthur put her down, but Eames couldn't be troubled with paying attention to his immediate surroundings until they had broken orbit and were floating free in space. Eames put them in a comfortable 20k light and let out a long, shaky breath.

Eames looked at Arthur, crouched next to Eames' chair, still breathing hard. He reached out and rested a heavy hand on the nape of Arthur's neck.

"You're not running off on me this time," he decided, squeezing a little.

"Oh, really," Arthur said, tone dry as a bone, but he was smiling, so Eames figured it was alright.

_Fin_


End file.
